All _fame_ is foreign, but of true desert; Plays round the head, but comes not near the heart; One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil’d feels, Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. * * * * * And what is _fame_? the meanest have their day; The greatest can but blaze, and pass away. _Pope._ I hate this _Fame_, false avarice of fancy, The sickly shade of an unsolid greatness! The lying lure of pride that Europe cheats by. _Hill._ Absurd! to think to overreach the grave, And from the wreck of names to rescue ours: The best concerted schemes men lay for _fame_, Die fast away; only themselves die faster. _Blair._ Not inspiration can obtain That _fame_, which poets languish for in vain. How mad their aim, who thirst for glory, strive To grasp, what no man can possess alive! _Fame_’s a reversion in which men take place (O late reversion!) at their own decease. _Young._ Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist Of Time, though meagre all, and ghostly thin, Most unsubstantial, unessential shade, Was earthly _Fame_. She was a voice alone, And dwelt upon the noisy tongues of men. She never thought, but gabbled ever on, Applauding most what least deserved applause. The motive, the result, was nought to her. The deed alone, though dyed in human gore, And steeped in widows’ tears, if it stood out To prominent display, she talked of much, And roared around it with a thousand tongues. As changed the wind her organ, so she changed Perpetually; and whom she praised to-day, Vexing his ear with acclamations loud, To-morrow blamed, and hissed him out of sight. _Pollok._ True _fame_’s a plant that seems to need A body buried--for its seed; And ere the churlish sucklings thrive, The parent-stock must cease to live. The good, the great, the wise, the just, Are little valued till they’re dust, Nor till they mutter “Earth to earth,” Can men perceive another’s worth. _C. C. Colton._ What though the mounds that mark’d each name, Beneath the wings of Time, Have worn away?--Theirs is the _fame_ Immortal and sublime; For who can tread on Freedom’s plain, Nor wake her dead to life again. _R. Montgomery._ FAREWELL. Another said, Lord, I will follow Thee; but let me first go bid them _farewell_, which are at home at my house.--Luke, ix. 61.